Leadership Personal Development Plan

Leadership Certificate Program

Personal Development Plan (PDP)

Initial Outline

Hanzhi Zhang

What Makes a True “Leader”?

Leader is a very familiar word that everyone may need to use during any time period of life. From a nation’s leader to a group leader of the class, all of those leaders play very crucial roles in their teams although they are in different formats. Just like there are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people’s eyes, there is no common definition of true leaders or leadership. Depend on what I learned from experience, I develop my definition of leadership that leadership is an interactive process for leaders to motivate group cooperation and influence every group member by adjusting their leadership styles according to different situations.

Taking charge of a high school organization for two years was my first time to realize the importance of the role as a leader. Apparently, leader is the person who has the highest authority to take control of his or her followers and ask them to finish tasks according to the command. However, for the true leaders, established authority is just an additional tool to help them better show their leadership skills and more efficiently motivate the whole groups. The two-year experience of being an organization leader not only developed my leadership skills from scratch, but also inspired me to realize my weak communication skills and lack of knowledge about leadership. After entering college and choosing Advertising as my major, I have a deeper understanding of my major and future plan and also foresee the important role that leadership skills will play in my life. As a student, I need to become an effective leader or supporter when facing time-limited projects. As an internship, I need to take charge of my team members and motivate the entire team toward final goals. These are just two major examples show how leadership skills play an important role in my life, and almost every aspect of my life needs leadership skills. Although I participated in several i-programs and took leadership-related courses, I still want to have a more thorough understanding of myself and also systematically learn about leadership skills. Therefore, being part of the Leadership Certificate becomes the best choice for me.

In order to become a successful brand manager in the short run, as well as a successful and competent advertising planner in the future, high level of leadership skills is very essential for me. In the advertising industry, teamwork is the most basic and also core skill for each advertising man. For the completion of each campaign, different departments, such as media, creative and design, need to work together from discussing rough ideas to prepare specific proposals and to final implementation. Therefore, having certain knowledge and experience of leadership skills will help me quickly adjust to new working environment and promote tacit cooperation with my coworkers in a short time period. Moreover, as my definition of leadership pointed out, I wish I can become a leader who has flexibility to adjust leadership style, to motivate interactive cooperation and also to build reciprocal relationship with team members. Through the completion of Leadership Certificate, I hope enriched knowledge of leadership cannot only favor me to achieve my life goals, but also turn me into a more knowledgeable, organized and efficient person.